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Making Gifts for Life

Monday, December 5, 2011

The holidays and gift making

Now is the time to enjoy the holidays, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas can be quite busy and filled with tons to do. But we all need to slow down and take a breath. Really look at what your kids are experiencing and what they find joy in. When we started decorating this weekend, I thought the kids were too old to make a gingerbread house, want to make cookies with mom or decorate the tree as a family. But they surprised me with wanting to do all that. My son didn't get to do as much as he wanted, he had prior commitments but it turned out to be a whole lot of fun, and we even got a real Christmas tree for the first time this year. We went to Stokoe Farms and walked the tree field until we found the perfect tree, a Frasier Fur. The tree is lean and tall so we could fit it in a small spot this year. I also was able to get enough left over branches to make some crafts with, I haven't done so yet but planning on doing that today.

I have however made a really cool craft, that could be an anytime of year craft but really works well with the Christmas season. I made these wonderful candy wreaths. I saw the idea on a Martha Stewart video and had to try it, surprisingly enough, they are very easy and take little to no creativeness. You start with a wire wreath form, you only need it to be one piece of wire, there are some that have two - four different size circles all attached together. You just need the really cheap ones, they should be about 20 cents or so. 8 inch is a good size, you will need 2lbs of cellophane wrapped candy and some embroidery thread. I use a color that matches whatever candy I decide on. The strawberry candies with the green and red wrappers and the peppermint candies with the clear cellophane, make gorgeous wreaths.

I also am making one with mary jane candies on it, they aren't in cellophane wrappers, so it's a little more difficult, because these wrappers are wax paper and they rip very easily. But my mom loves mary jane's and I thought it would be a cool gift for her. I hope she loves it.